Thursday, May 14, 2009

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Scott O'Donnell had two doubles and three RBI for Northern Highlands, which topped Wallington, 6-5, and won its first Bergen County Tournament game since 2001.

ALLENDALE -- The first two pitches thrown to Greg Taus in the bottom of the fifth inning were not to his liking, but the umpire disagreed. It left the Northern Highlands leftfielder with a deep hole to climb out of against Wallington starter Nick Kochell with the go-ahead run standing at third base with two outs in the opening round of the Bergen County Tournament on Wednesday afternoon. But after falling behind in the count 0-2, there were seven more pitches in the pivotal at bat that eventually decided the game.

“There were two strikes that were questionable to me and I wasn’t going to swing at them no matter what, but I was behind 0-2 in the count anyway. That was frustrating, but I knew I had to calm myself down or else I wasn’t going to get a hit,” said Taus. “I was able to foul off three or four pitches to keep the at bat going until I got a ball up and over the middle of the plate. I choked up a little bit and got a hit.”

Taus dunked a single to centerfield that scored Scott O’Donnell from third base capped off a three-run rally that took the Highlanders from down to up by a run. The Highlanders then turned a key double play in the top of the seventh to hold on for a 6-5 victory and the Highlanders’ first Bergen County Tournament win since 2001. The reward for the 15th seeded Highlanders is a date with No. 2 St. Joseph on Saturday in the Round of 16.

Wallington's Chris Sullivan about to make contact with his third inning home run that tied the game at 3.

“It’s been eight years, so this is a great accomplishment for the kids. When we came into this year we talked about team work and not being a group of individuals. The kids have really bought in and worked hard and one of our goals was to make the counties. We earned this opportunity,” said Paul Albarella, who is in his fifth season as the Highlands head coach. “This is great for the team, this program and the school, so I am very happy.”

But Wallington, a Group 1 school trying to mange its pitching staff to deal with the county tournament, the state tournament, a run at the BCSL-National Division title and a stretch of 9 games in 11 days, didn’t make it easy. The Panthers, seeded 18th, jumped in front 1-0 in the opening inning when Steve McCabe came through with a two-out single that knocked in Alessio Offreda with the game’s first run.

But before it got a chance to build on its lead, Wallington’s defense struggled at the outset behind sophomore Nick Kochell, who was making just his second varsity start. An error on a ground ball hit by leadoff hitter Dave Holcomb helped set the table for O’Donnell, who doubled home two runs with two outs, and infield another error allowed O’Donnell to score the third unearned run in the opening inning as Highlands grabbed a 3-1 lead.

Dan Rehain threw four innings of one-run relief to pick up the win for Highlands.

“That first inning hurt us badly because we knew coming up here, pitching a young kid making his second start, we knew they were going to put the ball in play and that they were a good hitting team. We knew we had to play error free baseball and that didn’t happen in the first inning,” said Wallington coach Jim Kondell. “We came up here to win the game its not like we just threw anybody out there to see what would happen, the kid [Kochell] can throw the ball, we just didn’t give him any support with our defense.”

It was another story for the Wallington offense in the third inning when it waited out four walks and sprinkled in a couple of big hits, including Chris Sullivan’s blast to right centerfield that easily cleared the fence and scored himself and Offreda, who led off the inning with a walk, to tie the game at 3. Charlie Vellis added a two-out RBI single to give Wallington a 4-3 lead after three innings.

But Dan Rehain then took over on the hill for Northern Highlands to start the top of the fourth inning and Rehain held the fort. He allowed just one run over four innings of relief and holding Wallington down until his team could mount its fifth inning comeback.

Chris D'Agostino had two hits and was solid behind the plate for Wallington.

Wallington had gone up 5-3 when Vellis delivered an RBI double in the top of the fifth, but in the bottom of the inning Eric Anderson drew a leadoff walk, Patterson singled and O’Donnell (2-for-3, 3 RBI, 2R) delivered his second double of the game, a ground rule shot that jumped the wall in straight away centerfield. Anderson scored and Patterson would have, but he was sent back to third when the deadball was called, and Kochell got the first out of the inning on a fly ball to right field that was not deep enough to score Patterson. That brought up Alex Sonageri, who laid down the perfect suicide squeeze to tie the score a 5 and bring up Taus, who delivered his clutch single to give the Highlanders the lead for good.

That left it up to Rehain, who retired five hitters in a row and the side in order in the sixth before hitting Sullivan with a pitch leading off the seventh. But then Patterson, who started the game at first base and moved to third when Rehain took over on the mound, turned in the biggest defensive play of the game. He snared a hot shot off the bat off Steve McCabe on one hop and started a 5-4-3, around the horn double play. It became even more important when Anthony D’Agostino blooped a one-out double as the next batter.

After a walk put two runners on, Rehain slammed the door with the last of his six strikeouts. Rehain picked up the win with his four outstanding innings of relief, while Kochell (5+ IP, 6 R, 3 ER, 8 H, 3 K, 3 BB) was the tough luck loser for Wallington.

Will Patterson had two hits and scored twice for No. Highlands, which improved to 13-7.

“It is just good to be back and contributing because I really struggled in the first half of the season. I had a pretty good game against Wayne Hills and then got a chance to come out here and do it again in a county game,” said Rehain. “It was a big spot and was ready to come in if I was needed and I just tried to throw strikes and mixing speeds was the key.”

Northern Highlands improved to 13-7 with the win and, in addition to reached the main draw of the county tournament, its still in the running for the NBIL Division 1 title where the Highlanders trail both Ramapo and Old Tappan by just one game in the loss column.

“St. Joe’s is going to be tough. We know that because we scrimmaged them, but it is just a ballgame and anything can happen and we have nothing to lose,” said Albarella. “We were 10-15 last year, so to be where we are right now no matter what happens on Saturday is a good place to be.”

Wallington is not in a bad spot either. The Panthers are two games behind Lyndhurst and one in back of St. Mary in the BCSL-National Division standings and still get one more shot at each of them during the regular season. Wallington might also me in line for a first round bye in the state tournament, so the Panthers can now put the pedal to the medal heading down the stretch.

“We have five games this week and three games next week plus a state game. We wanted to win this game, don’t get me wrong, but our first goal was to go after the conference then worry about the states and then the county,” said Kondell, whose team fell to 14-4 on the season. “With the way the weather was, it pushed all of these game right on top of each other and we have a big game every day now. We can’t worry about his one anymore; we have Lyndhurst [on Thursday].”

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